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Well, Well: “Polling Group Censures Iraq Death Toll Researcher”

This Is Both Significant and Overdue....

Do y’all recall that strange 2006 “survey” that appeared in the British medical journal The Lancet? The one that claimed that some 655,000 Iraqi civilians (that’s nearly 3% of the total population) had been killed since the 2003 invasion?

And have you noticed how that absurd “study” was a scream-slogan for the unhinged for the past two years?

A prominent group of polling researchers has accused the lead author of a 2006 study suggesting massive civilian deaths in Iraq of violating the polling profession’s codes and ethics.

The Executive Council of the American Association for Public Opinion Research said Dr. Gilbert Burnham, a Johns Hopkins University professor, had repeatedly refused to cooperate with an eight-month investigation into his research on the Iraqi death toll that made headlines in October 2006 when it was published by The Lancet, a British medical journal.

The widely publicized study headed by Burnham contended that nearly 655,000 Iraqis had died because of the U.S.-led invasion and war in Iraq.

“When asked to provide several basic facts about this research, Burnham refused,” the council said in a statement. It noted that the group’s Code of Professional Ethics and Practices calls for researchers to disclose their methodology when survey findings are made public so they can be independently evaluated and verified.

“Dr. Burnham provided only partial information and explicitly refused to provide complete information about the basic elements of his research,” said Mary Losch, chair of the association’s Standards Committee.

This is getting to be drearily predictable – political propaganda is given a spray-paint-coating of scientific imitation, and then is “marketed” as being science. It’s good that someones with better expectations of professional responsibility had the guts to ask for more details, and then reacted appropriately when the basic standards of “science” were clearly being violated.

As an aside, the same situation holds with much (most?) of the so-called “science” associated with “global warming” (or whatever it’s being called this week). A great deal of professional censure is required there as well….